Google's Washington Influence Grows
From the May 9 issue of National Journal magazine...
Google is rising fast. It has a near-monopoly on Internet searches, holds a commanding share of the growing online advertising market, and is expanding into myriad online services now dominated by its politically wired corporate rivals. That trajectory matches Microsoft's, but with a major difference. Microsoft spurned Washington and was subsequently humbled by a 1998 antitrust lawsuit backed by its rivals. Google has carefully cultivated friends and political clout in Washington, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle, to help it withstand the inevitable pushback from aggrieved competitors.
Google's influence is illustrated by reaction to the book deal that it signed with publishers and authors last year. The agreement gives Google 37 percent of any revenue derived from the company's digitizing of an estimated 7 million "orphan" books whose copyright owners can't be found and makes it difficult for other companies to get any revenue from those works. "Google is the huge, 2-ton gorilla, with resources from here to kingdom come," said former Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Colo., the former president of the Association of American Publishers. Executives in publishing and other media industries are nervous about the Google's expansion, she said, but "mainly feel [that the company's executives] have contributed a tremendous amount to the culture by this tremendous search engine, and everybody is using it. That builds goodwill."
Read the full story in National Journal magazine here (subscription required).
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